Virginia recently enacted its own data protection/privacy law and like its European and Californian predecessors, the technical piece is key. Like the GDPR and CCPA, the Consumer Data Protection Act (“CDPA”), which goes into effect on January 1, 2023, broadly defines “personal data” as “any information that is linked or reasonably linkable to an identified or identifiable natural person.” The law also requires controllers to conduct a data protection assessment and implement technical data security…

On April 1, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court decided the question whether the Telephone Consumer Protection Act’s (TCPA) definition of “autodialer” encompasses equipment that can “store” and dial telephone numbers, even if the device does not “us[e] a random or sequential number generator.” It does not. To qualify as an “automatic telephone dialing system,” a device must have the capacity either to store a telephone number using a random or sequential generator or to produce…

On March 3, 2021, the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) announced a Consent Order with a NYDFS-licensed Maine-based mortgage banker and loan servicer settling alleged violations of the NYDFS cybersecurity regulations. (In the matter of Residential Mortgage Services, Inc., March 3, 2021). The Consent Order required RMS to pay $1.5 million, and within 90 days, submit to NYDFS all of the following: a comprehensive written Cybersecurity Incident Response Plan; a comprehensive…

Investigative findings In a joint investigation report, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, together with the commissioners of BC, Alberta, and Quebec concluded that Clearview AI violated Canadians’ privacy rights under federal and provincial privacy laws by scraping billons of images of people available online to be continually used in what amounted to a virtual “police lineup.” They found Clearview collected highly sensitive information without the knowledge or consent of individuals, and did so for an…

On March 2, 2021, the Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia signed into law the Consumer Data Protection Act, which contains many elements of California’s Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The new law goes into effect on January 1, 2023. But first, you need to determine whether the law applies to your business. The law begins: This chapter applies to persons that conduct business in the Commonwealth or…